The free Kitchen open to people of every religion: Guru ka langar

Guru Ka Langar is a tradition where people sit on the ground, at the same level (exception for people with disabilities and elderly), regardless of religion, caste, beliefs etc. and have food served to them by volunteers. The concept of langar was initiated by the first Sikh Guru, Guru Nanak Dev Ji based on his dictum of earning bread by honest means and sharing it with others and donating one-tenth of one’s income for a noble cause. Any time a Gurdwara (or, Gurudwara) is open; everyone is welcomed to have a hot meal. It has ensured the participation of women and children to volunteer and render service to mankind. Preparations of the meal are done by women and children help in serving the food.

In the most revered Gurdwara, The Golden Temple in Amritsar, Punjab , India , at least 50,000 devotees or tourists are served daily in the community kitchen and the number becomes almost double on special occasions. Even the Mughal King Akbar sat among common people and shared langar.

Women preparing roti for langar, Wikimedia commons

Bhai Desa Singh in his Rehitnama says, “A Sikh who is ‘well to do’ must look to the needs of his poor neighbours. Whenever he meets a traveler or a pilgrim from a foreign country, he must serve him devotedly”. It is believed that when you are having Guru ka langar, you experience Chadti kalan (the feeling of being lifted up) and Sarbhat da bhala (the loving intent of desiring the best for all people). Before serving the food, a prayer (Ardas) is recited and a sacred knife (Kirpan) is passed through for blessings.

The food prepared in the Guru ka langar is mostly vegetarian (except nihangs sometimes serve meat referred as Mahaprashad on Hola Mohalla). The reason of serving vegetarian food might be to welcome people from every religion as Hindus don’t eat beef and Muslims didn’t eat non-halal meat therefore opening langar to both the main religious groups of India. As the congregations are mostly of Indian origin therefore the food served is based on Indian cuisine. This tradition of offering food to everyone and the practice of Seva (selfless service to others) is highly valued in Sikhism. The Seva of serving Guru ka langar has become associated with the identity of Sikhs and is popular in every part of the Globe wherever there is Gurdwara and major Sikh diaspora. At the 2004 World Parliament of Religions conference in Barcelona, Spain, Sikhs made a huge impression by serving Guru ka Langar to all the participants. It was a reflective exhibition of the assets of diversity, humility and loving service to all.

People are supposed to take off their shoes and cover their heads while sharing langar. Everyone is welcome to Gurdwaras eradicating the distinction between the rich and the poor and also curbing egoism as everyone sits together and eats the same food.

Pashchiema is an intern at NewsGram and a student of journalism and mass communication in New Delhi. Twitter:@pashchiema5

something like this should be done in temples too! If you notice, there are no beggars outside gurudwaras but temples, this can be one reason

Simranjeet Singh

It really feels great to see people from different religion, race, region, sitting together and enjoying food in Gurudwaras. And, the way they prepare food in these Mega Kitchens is really fascinating. I captured such a video of Gurudwara Nada Sahib. See in a short video how they prepared Langar on the Eve of Guru Nanak Dev Ji’s Birthday.

something like this should be done in temples too! If you notice, there are no beggars outside gurudwaras but temples, this can be one reason

Simranjeet Singh

It really feels great to see people from different religion, race, region, sitting together and enjoying food in Gurudwaras. And, the way they prepare food in these Mega Kitchens is really fascinating. I captured such a video of Gurudwara Nada Sahib. See in a short video how they prepared Langar on the Eve of Guru Nanak Dev Ji’s Birthday.

In today’s period, Sikhs in Pakistan are among the smallest minorities

Pakistan today uses blasphemy as a weapon against minorities and fellow Muslims alike, which is a crime that carries an involuntary death penalty

Mr. Singh heads a council representing the Sikhs in Pakistan

Aug 15, 2017: At the age of 11, Radesh Singh’s grandfather left his village in India’s Punjab province to move to Peshawar, which is bordered by Afghanistan in the far northwest of the country.

Pakistan wasn’t even a glint in the eye of its founder, Mohammad Ali Jinnah in the year 1901 when the British ruled the Indian subcontinent and Peshawar held the promise of work and adventure.

It has been 70 years since the partition of India, which divided the subcontinent into majority Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan and led to one of the largest migrations in modern history.

Singh’s family have been waging a secessionist uprising in India ever since, demanding unmitigated sovereignty for India’s Punjab state where they command. Singh’s family is neither Hindu nor Muslim but Sikh, a religious minority in both countries. Feeling increasingly less at home on either side of the border, they have been victims of local Taliban violence in the recent years in Muslim Pakistan.

Singh’s grandfather would never return to his village, not even in 1947. Singh stated that poverty kept his grandfather in Peshawar, which was controlled by fiercely independent ethnic Pashtun tribesmen. He said, “It’s not easy to start over at zero when you have very little,” mentioned BBG Direct.

According to Singh, the enmity in the immediate aftermath of 1947 was slightly lower in the northwest. It was followed by decades of peace. The decision to stay in Pakistan appeared like a reliable option at the time.

The Sikhs had lived harmoniously for centuries alongside their Pashtun Muslim countrymen. Singh explains, Sikhs had a glorious history in the northwest. In the 18th century, they oversaw a dynasty headed by a Sikh ruler Ranjit Singh, whose capital was Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore. He rebuilt Peshawar’s infamous Bala Hisar Fort, an imposing walled fortress that some historians assume is as old as the city itself.

In today’s period, easily identifiable because of the colorful turbans and the surname Singh, Sikhs in Pakistan are among the smallest minorities. As indicated by the CIA Factbook, 3.6 percent of Pakistan’s 180 million people are non-Muslims which include Sikhs, Christians, and Hindus.

Singh asserted until 1984 Pakistan’s Hindus and Sikhs lived unitedly in northwest Pakistan. Their children married and worshipped together. But after the tragic assassination of India’s Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards, the entire scene changed consequently.

“They (Hindus) cut all relations with us. They said Pakistani Sikhs are like all Sikhs everywhere. No difference. They said, ‘From now on, we will be separate from you”, Singh recalled.

Today Sikhs in Pakistan are contending with the government for possession of dozens of Sikh temples (Gurdwaras); however, they have succeeded to restore some of the buildings. The Pakistan government took over the buildings after 1947 and allowed the squatters to remain.

Once a vibrant Gurdwara attended by hundreds of Sikhs, it no longer resembled a house of worship but rather a sweeping courtyard. However, it was until now that two families called it the home, said Singh.

Singh who heads a council representing the Sikhs in Pakistan, said young Sikhs have been looking to leave as the homeland has begun to turn toward radical Islam.

“They want to go to another country, not to India or Pakistan. But every country eyes them with suspicion.,” he said.

He adds, “Even Indians see his Pakistani passport and question his intentions, suggesting he wants to agitate for Sikh secessionism, the battle that resulted in Indira Gandhi’s death and a dream still held by many Sikhs on both sides of the border.”

According to Singh, Pakistan’s slide into intolerance began when Pakistan’s military dictator Zia-ul Haq set the country on the course of Islamic radicalization in the late 1970s with the former Soviet Union’s invasion of neighboring Afghanistan. Jihad became a rallying cry to defeat the communists in Afghanistan.

Extremism aggravated after the 2001 intrusion of Afghanistan by a U.S.-led coalition, he proclaimed.

The tribal areas were steadily caught by Taliban and in 2013 several Sikhs were killed, their limbs cut. Singh said the brutality of the killings and the threats sent thousands abandoning Pakistan.

Pakistan today uses blasphemy as a weapon against minorities and fellow Muslims alike, which is a crime that carries an involuntary death penalty.

“That is why we have a fear in our hearts, that this law can be used against us,” he told.

“In the last nearly 40 years we have been facing the boom, boom (mimicking the sound of explosions) in every city of Pakistan,” said Singh. “In a long time we have not heard any sweet sounds in our Peshawar, but still we love our city.”

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